The reason why Finland was the only country to abstain, apart from Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic and Poland that voted against, is because we have a populist anti-immigration party in government.

Perussuomalaiset (PS)* foreign minister, Timo Soini, has done a lot of harm to Finland’s image and its relations with Sweden.

On Monday he blamed Sweden for helping asylum seekers to come to Finland. He said that its western neighbor will help terrorists and traffickers if Sweden continues to have such open borders.

No wonder people like Luoto are concerned.

* The Finnish name for the Finns Party is the Perussuomalaiset (PS). The English names of the party adopted by the PS, like True Finns or the Finns Party, promote in our opinion nativist nationalism and xenophobia. We therefore prefer to use the Finnish name of the party on our postings.